


Waiting For A Train

by asimaiyat



Category: Hannibal (TV), Inception (2010)
Genre: Crossover, Dark, Fusion, M/M, Manipulation, Mental Illness, Mind Control, Someone Help Will Graham, hannibal is creepy, identity crisis, let's be irresponsible with people's brains, you were just curious?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 02:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asimaiyat/pseuds/asimaiyat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The person you think of as yourself is not you. Your principles, your work, your compassion, are nothing but crutches you've created to deal with the fear of your true self.</i>
</p>
<p>It's a simple idea, but Will Graham can't get it out of his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting For A Train

_The person you think of as yourself is not you._

_Your principles, your work, your compassion, are merely crutches you’re created to deal with your fear of your true self._

It’s a simple idea. Nothing too sophisticated. But no matter what elaborate paths Will’s mind travels, it’s where he always ends up, staring in mirrors, seeing the face of a stranger.

“I know who I am,” Will says to the mirror, standing in a bathroom that doesn’t feel familiar. “I’m Will Graham. I’m in Baltimore, Maryland. I’m awake.”

Hannibal’s face appears behind him in the mirror. The architect has heard his voice, and now he has that sad, concerned look again. It makes Will uncomfortable. He averts his eyes from the mirror.

“Who are you, Will?” Hannibal asks, gently. His hand is on Will’s upper arm, just enough to remind him that he’s physically present. He needs that, sometimes.

“I’m Will Graham. I’m a forger. I work with you, Hannibal Lecter. We do extractions. I like animals, I like going fishing, I like classical music — no, wait, you like classical music, god damn it —” the face in the mirror crumples in frustration.

“It’s fine, Will. You can like it too,” says Hannibal, and he leads Will out of the bathroom. Will sees him sparing a baleful glance for their retreating reflections.

———-

It was supposed to be over by now. Hannibal had wanted so badly to claim the troubled young man for his own, to free him from all the tiresome moral quandaries he’d become entangled by.

He’d first met Will when he’d come dangerously close to contact with the FBI’s task force against dream crime, and what had begun as an act of sabotage had become a more complicated liaison. The boy’s dreams were rich and dark, exquisitely disturbing, in many ways more vivid and real than most people’s waking lives. Hannibal had become comfortable inhabiting that grotesque world. He’d started out simply wanting to use Will for his own ends, and sometimes he told himself that that was still what he was doing, but it wasn’t, not really. Not when he’d insinuated himself deep within Will’s subconscious and planted that simple, seductive message. That had come from a need that might have been sentimental, or might have just been sensual, but was certainly not remotely practical.

And at first it had worked so well. Will had been a worthy challenge, but his dreams had a power over him that he couldn’t resist. He’d turned increasingly to Hannibal, needing reassurance that he wasn’t going crazy when he began to reject his own identity, when his friends and colleagues trying to help only seemed to be lying to him to preserve an illusion. Only Hannibal told him to trust that instinct, that if he felt something so deeply in his consciousness, he should not attempt to repress it. And Will had surrendered himself, had let Hannibal define who he was, little by little, until he was using his gorgeously malleable dream-self to aid Hannibal in the most subtle and devious of extractions. Will could become anyone, inhabit them with a conviction that could fool their closest friends and lovers. And when they were done, only Hannibal could lead him out of it, and remind him of who he was truly supposed to be.

But the uncertainty had not resolved. Embracing his own darkness had not set Will free from the tumult that Hannibal had let loose in his head. Sometimes, when Will was curled in on himself with his hand twisted in his dark curls, losing himself in the planning stages of a job, Hannibal would hand him his own vellum sketchbook and ask him to draw a rough self-portrait. The faces that stared up from the page were almost never his own.


End file.
